Recent articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist
and elsewhere show the ongoing concern that the avian influenza virus H5N1
could cross our shores. So far, the virus has confined itself mainly to
foreign countries, where reportedly it has killed fewer than 200 people, while
instigating the death and destruction of hundreds of millions of chickens and
other birds in the live poultry markets and factory farms that have enabled
avian flu viruses to mutate and spread in the first place.

Last month, an outbreak of the H5N1 virus on a large turkey
factory farm in Britain confirmed a report by the National Academy of Sciences
in 2006 that the virus will most likely enter western countries through an
infected poultry trade, including the international trade in live chicks and
contaminated feedstuffs, rather than from migrating waterfowl.

Avian influenza viruses have lived harmlessly in the
intestines of waterfowl for millennia. Shed in sparsely populated outdoor
settings in the droppings of birds whose immune systems have evolved to
accommodate them, these viruses are held in check. But industrialized poultry
production practices – including the severe overcrowding of birds and
attendant lack of hygiene – have vastly increased the ability of avian
influenza viruses to mutate into highly pathogenic strains, like the H5N2 and
H7N3 viruses that have already struck commercial poultry flocks in the United
States and Canada.

Many Americans would be surprised to learn how many
tax-funded massacres of birds are quietly conducted on U.S. factory farms to
control the viruses and bacteria that thrive in those places. So rampant are
pathogens in the poultry houses that last year the U.S. Department of
Agriculture added firefighting foam to gassing and other government-approved
methods of exterminating chickens and turkeys en masse – methods that
veterinarians have publicly criticized as horribly inhumane.

Even without bird flu, people should know that poultry is
the most common cause of food poisoning in the home. In January, Consumer
Reports published a study conducted in 2006 in which 83 percent of chickens
purchased from U.S. supermarkets and specialty stores were found to be
contaminated with Campylobacter and Salmonella bacteria – a substantial
increase from their 2003 findings. In addition, 84 percent of the Salmonella
and 67 percent of the Campylobacter bacteria showed resistance to antibiotics.

While many are calling for an end to the intensive poultry
production practices responsible for bird flu and other transmittable
diseases, it is highly unlikely that the demand of billions of people for
poultry and egg products can be met without the industrial mass-production
methods that generate these diseases. By contrast, an animal-friendly, vegan
diet is not only an ethical opportunity to create a less violent, cruel and
toxic world, but an intelligent food safety initiative that doesn’t depend on
the government. For more information, including free recipes, please visit our
Web site at www.upc-online.org.
_______

Karen Davis, PhD is president of United Poultry Concerns, a
nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful
treatment of domestic fowl.

United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that
promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. http://www.upc-online.org

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